Abraham Mordecai

UPDATE:  SEE THIS NEWER POST ABOUT ABRAHAM & BENJAMIN: http://webgene.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-info-on-chief-whitecloud-benjamin.html

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Abraham Mordecai was the father of Benjamin Moses Mordecai. A lot of info is out there on him. He founded the first cotton gin in Alabama, and was the founder of Montgomery, Alabama.

He purportedly married a half-Indian, half-black woman who left him on the Trail of Tears on her way to Arkansas. It is also reported when Abraham is an old man that he has children living in Arkansas. Records are scarce from the early 1800s in Arkansas, which was Indian Territory at the time.

The proof that Abram/Abraham M. Mordecai is Benjamin's father comes from the detail be written in Benjamin's own hand, and in the 1880 Chicago census there is a footnote that states Benjmain, Abraham and Hattie Mordecai "have Indian blood in their veins but not enough to be called Indian. Their grandmother is Indian." This would perfectly desribe children of Abraham and his half-Indian wife.

We also know that he was injured by a band of Indians for cavorting with one of their wives, and his faithful Indian wife nursed him back to health. And we know he gave testimony in a case of abduction against a group of Indians (see links below). He lived among and traded with the Indians extensively, travelling from Alabama and Georgia in the east to New Orleans in the west.

This information requires a second look at all of the "mulatto" entries for Mordecais in the censuses, as well as a new lok at all of the Mordecais in New Orleans. I've found many Mordecais I have discounted because they were entered as mulatto. Of course many Indians were also listed as mulatto.

Abram was a Jew who converted to Methodist. Click the documents and article links below for more info.

Abram Mordecai 1755-1849. Born October 24, 1755 in Pennsylvania; settled 1783 in Georgia where he became a successful trader among the Cusseta Indians. First U.S. citizen to settle (1785) in what became Montgomery County. Living and marrying among the Creeks, he established a trading house for skins, furs, and medicinal barks two miles from Line Creek. Alabama historian A.J. Pickett visited him in Dudleyville in 1847. Fiercely independent to the end, he died and was buried there two years later.

Source: http://www.archives.state.al.us/markers/imontgomery.html

Mordecai's Cotton Gin: Alabama's First - In 1785, Abram Mordecai, a Jewish veteran of the Revolutionary War, settled in this area which was still Indian country. On the Alabama River near here in 1802, he installed a cotton gin manufactured by Lyons & Barnett of Georgia. Until Indians burned his equipment, he ginned his own cotton and that of his Indian neighbors. His gin, the first in Alabama, was the forerunner of those that sprang up after the Territory was formed in 1817 and pioneers with "Alabama Fever" rushed to claim the fertile soil. The restored Old Alabama Town gin is typical of those operated until the early 20th century.

Source: http://www.archives.state.al.us/markers/imontgomery.html

Pickett's History of Alabama (Scroll down to Mordecai entry)

Singular Inhabitants of Alabama

Chronicles of the Lost

Indian Claim